Bitcoin has reached yet another milestone, surging past $4000 for the first time in its history. The digital currency hit $4208.39 mark at 08:19 UTC on Sunday, thus rising by more than 20% in a week.

Due to the price upturn, bitcoin market cap escalated to a record $66,5 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data. Meantime, the combined market cap reached $135,5 billion, just two days after exceeding its previous record of $127 billion.

At the time of writing, bitcoin is valued at $4073, while the overall market cap is estimated at $135,9 billion. Bitcoin’s market cap currently has a value of $67,2 billion.

Most financial analysts remain optimistic about the future of the digital currency. Its price has already surged higher than it was predicted by the head of technical strategy at Goldman Sachs, Sheba Jafari, who suggested that the digital currency would rise to about $4,000 by the end of 2017.

According to forecasts by RT’s Keiser Report host and cryptocurrency enthusiast, Max Keiser, the price of bitcoin is likely to increase to $5,000 this year, owing to the growing adoption of bitcoin worldwide, rising demand from investors, and the upcoming SegWit activation. During the previous two months, Keiser continuously cited reasons that could drive bitcoin value to rise above $4,000 and potentially to the $5,000 level.

Likewise, Ronnie Moas, a stock research analyst and founder of Standpoint Research, believes that bitcoin will achieve $5,000 within this year. Another expert, John McAfee, predicts that the cryptocurrency value will climb above $500,000 within three years.

Overall, the current trend is likely to continue in the next months. A growing bitcoin demand from institutional investors, as well as the market confidence in its ability to scale will fuel bitcoin price to move higher. Besides, the upcoming SegWit activation eliminated any uncertainty that the digital currency will be able to scale without any technical issues.

Like gold, bitcoin can serve as an alternative asset, especially in view of the world’s geopolitical tensions. The adoption of the digital currency is steadily growing as well. A few days ago, Fidelity launched new service to enable users track their holdings in virtual currency.

Meanwhile, Chris Burniske, an author of the upcoming book, “Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond,” stated that there is a strong correlation between the value of the digital currency and the performance of the term ‘bitcoin’ on Google Search.

As he noted on Twitter, the upturn in bitcoin value and Google searches have historically led to sharp price decrease.

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